Melodifestivalen at The Harcourt Arms, London

This Swedish pub is the only pub in London you can watch the Melodifestivalen shows on the big screen. It's always a great atmosphere and the £6 entry fee is very reasonable as it includes a free drink! If you're in London head on down there to see how a national final should be done.

• Eurovision Heat 1 Sat 6th Feb
• Eurovision Heat 2 Sat 13th Feb
• Eurovision Heat 3 Sat 20th Feb
• Eurovision Heat 4 Sat 27th Feb
• Eurovision Second Chance Sat 6th March
• Eurovision Final Sweden Sat 13th March
  

Ticket price for standing in the Mainbar is £6 / Heat with one drink included.
There will be 20 tickets for seating in the Topbar (ONLY AVAILABLE ONLINE) for £10 each which will include two drinks and reserved seating.

BBQ will be available from 6.00-9.00 pm

www.theharcourt.com
To go direct to ticket booking click here

2010 Romania - Selecţia Naţională

Sorry to disappoint you, Mihai isn't back this year but there are 16 acts hoping to equal or better Mihai Traistariu's 4th place position for Romania back in 2006.

Thirteen of them have made it to Youtube so far:

1. Luminiţa Anghel, Tony Tomas & Adrian Piper - Save Their Lives
2. Alexa Niculae - Baby
3. Paula Seling & Ovi - Playing With Fire
4. Paula Seling & Kamara Ghedi - It's Not Too Late
5. Zero - Lay Me Down
6. Tina Geru - Love Is War
7. Alexandra Ungureanu - Crazy
8. Anda Adam & Connect-R - Surrender
9. Cătălin Josan - Around Around
10. Răzvan Krivach - Jackpot
11. Trupa Pasager - Running Out Of Time
12. Lora & Sony Flame - Come Along
13. Dalma - I'm Running

Youtube playlist of the songs here

The other 3 songs are:

Hotel FM - Come As One
Laurentiu Niculescu - Searching for Perfect Emotion
Lucia Dumitrescu - See You in Heaven Michael

The Romanian national final takes place 6th March 2010.

Estonia - eesti laul 2010

Oh dear, after all the great Nordic national final songs these come as a bit of a shock to the ears. Thank god there are only 10 to get through, Lithuania has 36 songs!

The 10 eesti laul finalists are:

1. Iiris Vesik - Astronaut
2. Disko 4000 - Ei usu
3. Violina feat Rolf Junior - Maagiline päev
4. Robin Juhkental (Malcolm Lincoln) - Siren
5. Mimicry - New
6. Marten Kuningas & Mahavok - Oota mind veel
7. Lenna Kuurmaa - Rapunzel
8. Groundhog Day - Teiste seest kõigile
9. Tiiu Kiik - The one and only - Love

*10. 3 Pead - Poolel teel [no video yet available]

Youtube playlist here

eesti laul 2010 will take place at the Nokia Concert Hall, Tallinn on 12th March.

2010 Iceland - Söngvakeppni Sjónvarpsins Final

Saturday 6th February is turning out to be a Nordic 'Super Saturday' as Norway, Denmark and Iceland hold their national finals and the first Melodifestivalen show takes place in Sweden.

These are the 6 finalists in Iceland:

1. Íris Hólm - The one
2. Matthias Matthiasson - Out of sight
3. Jógvan Hansen - One more day
4. Hvanndalsbræður - Gleði og glens
5. Hera Björk - Je ne sais quoi
6. Sjonni Brink - Waterslide

Many fans will welcome the return of Hera Björk who competed in Danish MGP last year with 'Someday' and ultimately appeared in the Eurovision final anyway as a backing singer for Iceland's entry 'Is It True'.

As ever a Youtube playlist of the six finalists can be found here.

Didrik Solli-Tangen favourite to win MGP Norway on Saturday

This song is really growing on me. I think it would do very well with the juries. It's currently favourite with the bookies to win MGP on Saturday. Here are the full odds from Ladbrokes.com:

Didrik Solli-Tangen 11/20

A1 5/1

Keep of Kalessin 8/1

Bjorn Johan Muri 12/1

Maria Arredondo 21/1

Maria Haukaas Storeng 18/1

Venke Knutson 20/1

Alexander Stenerud 33/1

melodi grand prix 2010 - Denmark

These are the 10 finalists who will compete in the Danish melodi grand prix final on Saturday 6th February (popular day for national finals). 'All About A Girl' is from the same writing team as last year's Danish entry and again includes Ronan Keating.

Joakim Transberg - All About A Girl
Chanee & N'evergreen - In A Moment Like This
Bryan Rice - Breathing
Sukkerchock - Kæmper For Kærlighed
Silas & Kat - Come Come Run Away
Kaya Brüel - Only Tonight
MariaMatilde Band - Panik!
Simone - How Will I Know
Thomas Barsøe - Just Like Rain
Jens Marni - Gloria

Re-cap video uploaded by PolskaEurovision

DR melodi grand prix 2010 official website (in Danish)

Melodifestivalen is nearly here!

Sweden hasn't done very well at Eurovision in recent years, which is ironic because they have one of the best national final formats. Regardless of how they fare in Oslo, Melodifestivalen is guaranteed to be a spectacle in its own right.

Melodifestivalen 2010 begins this Saturday 6th February with Deltävling 1 at the Fjällräven Center, Örnsköldsvik. These are the artists and the songs they will be performing:

Ola Svensson - Unstoppable

Jenny Silver - A Place To Stay

Linda Pritchard - You're Making Me Hot-Hot-Hot

Pain of Salvation - Road Salt

Anders Ekborg - The Saviour

Jessica Andersson - I Did It For Love

Frispråkarn - Singel

Salem Al Fakir - Keep On Walking

Clips of the songs will be made available later in the week on the SVT website but for now you can see a Youtube playlist of the artists performing previous hits here (opens in new window).

Official Melodifestivalen site (in Swedish) http://svt.se/melodifestivalen